Transit City: Finch-Sheppard Corridor

[Dan416]

Well said Scarberian.

I really disliked Jane Pitfield, but at least she had the right idea of continual, on-going subway construction. Wikipedia states "She supported building two kilometres of subway per year".

So Sheppard East Don Mills to STC is about 8 km
Danforth Kennedy to STC is about 6 km
Sheppard West to Downsview is about 4 km
DRL Dundas West-Union-Pape-Eglinton 17 km
Eglinton Kennedy to Renforth 27 km

So if we had implemented Pitfield's plan, we could already have Sheppard West to Downsivew complete (as it's been 2 years, and 2 years x 2 km = 4 km, the length of the Sheppard extension to Downsview/Sheppard West). Or we could be 2/3 done Danforth to STC, or 1/2 done Sheppard East to STC.

I list the Sheppard East, Danforth East and Sheppard West extensions first because they're short, would help Sheppard become less of a stub, and would do a lot to fill out the subway network in the East.

Yonge North is happening anyway, so I'm not listing it. VCC I'm not listing because I don't agree with it in principal.

Eglinton and DRL are going to be the big bucks. They are both very large, very long-term plans. And we should be planning for them right now. And anyone who says Eglinton should be LRT should have the burden of proof on them that it will be as fast as a subway line.

 

[Rainforest]

If that's the argument though, how different is a LRT from a subway? What we are debating here is the question of degree. A LRT would bring development too. And LRTs have far more stops than a subway, providing more walk-on service and connecting to more feeder routes.

Those are pretty good questions that deserve a detailed review.

Which mode will trigger more local development: subway (faster trips) or on-street LRT (a stop closer to your place, and more accessible)? I don't know. I wonder if any studies to that matter are available (and even if they are, their conclusions might not be bullet-proof, as many factors other than transit can influence the area's makeup).

My guess is that a subway with frequent stop spacing (no more than 1 km apart) will trigger more local development than LRT, but the cost of subway construction cannot be justified by local development alone. A subway line must entice a large number of passengers from feeder / connecting routes to be a success.

Will LRT provide more walk-on service? Certainly.

Will LRT connect to more feeder routes? Probably not. Nearly all feeder / connecting routes will meet our line at major intersections where it will stop anyway, be it LRT or subway.

Moreover, subway will get more feeder routes because it will make more sense to direct them to subway. For example, if Sheppard subway is extended, the eastern section of Finch (Kennedy to Malvern) can be served by a bus operating off the subway station at Kennedy. If LRT is chosen for Sheppard, then the Finch E residents will prefer their bus to go all the way along Finch to Yonge, rather than connect to LRT.

 

[kEiThZ]

Also, no one ever bothers to note that it is an extension of an existing line that is proposed, not an entirely new line.

I could say the same for the proposed RT extension... It's probably the line that's most useful out of the bunch proposed for Scarborough. T

Building the Transfer City line and converting the Sheppard line to LRT means that LRT line would effectively cost well over $2 billion to build.

2 billion? How do you figure? If they ran it on the surface it would be half that easily. So you are essentially assuming that it would cost 1.5 billion to convert the subway to LRT. That's more than the cost of building the Sheppard subway. I think that's a bit too much.

Putting aside stuff like network connectivity and development potential and the public's clear preference for grade-separated transit lines,...

This I don't buy. I highly doubt the average joe has a clear preference for anything. As long as its comfortable, fairly priced and reasonably quick, he'll be happy to use it. LRTs can fulfill that mandate. Moreover, for the vast majority along that route, they will be upgrading from a bus to a LRT given today's situation. I think they'll be quite grateful

....keep in mind that the TTC will undoubtedly run longer vehicles at lower frequencies on the LRT line compared to the existing buses....

This is a double edged sword. If you are east, you lose because of the reduced frequency. But if you are on the subway line, you might see increased frequency compared to the subway.

....and no one from Finch or other routes is going to transfer to another line that stops at red lights...much of the ridership "demand" for a subway extension would *only* materialize with a subway extension.

This always seems like an optimistic argument to me. Does anyone have any evidence that ridership would shift. Given how far apart, Finch and Sheppard are, and the fact that switching from Finch to Sheppard would add two transfers for most riders (to use a N-S connection somewhere) I am skeptical a lot of riders would move over.

Well said Scarberian.

I really disliked Jane Pitfield, but at least she had the right idea of continual, on-going subway construction. Wikipedia states "She supported building two kilometres of subway per year".

That's half a billion dollars worth of subway construction a year. That's double the city's budget deficit. Even if the province uploaded all the social costs, there would not be enough money to pull that off. At best, 1 km a year.

So Sheppard East Don Mills to STC is about 8 km
Danforth Kennedy to STC is about 6 km
Sheppard West to Downsview is about 4 km
DRL Dundas West-Union-Pape-Eglinton 17 km
Eglinton Kennedy to Renforth 27 km

All those lines would be awesome. But that's 15.5 billion worth of construction, just for Toronto. How do you think that would go over in the GTA, and the rest of Canada. Funding subways also increases the O&M subsidies needed from the province. So you can how motivated the province and feds will be to fund that kind of program.

 

[kEiThZ]

Those are pretty good questions that deserve a detailed review.

That's all I've said. Let's see some analysis. So far, everyone's throwing around a lot of assumptions, like assuming riders would switch from from Finch to Sheppard, just to catch a subway. That's a lot to stake 2 billion on.

 

[Rainforest]

Given how far apart, Finch and Sheppard are, and the fact that switching from Finch to Sheppard would add two transfers for most riders (to use a N-S connection somewhere) I am skeptical a lot of riders would move over.

For most of trips, it would be one extra transfer but not two. Subway would get from Yonge to Kennedy in about 20 min, Finch E bus during the rush traffic would probably need 35 - 40 min. The extra transfer and the need to ride from Finch to Sheppard would eat part of the saving, but nevertheless, about 10 min could be won.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes, over $2B, as you need to add in the cost of constructing the Sheppard subway to get a real LRT + conversion price tag...magic elves didn't build it, leaving it ready for conversion almost immediately after completion.

As for some Finch riders shifting over to Sheppard, it is common knowledge that people practically always want [and will go out of their way if necessary] to travel longer distances on subways. Not that Finch is more than a few minutes away from Sheppard. It's also common knowledge that people prefer grade-separated lines because these lines are faster. Imagine how much busier Bathurst would be if the Yonge subway wasn't just a few minutes over. By the way, lots of people transfer onto the Finch bus from all the N/S routes it crosses.

 

[kEiThZ]

Yes, over $2B, as you need to add in the cost of constructing the Sheppard subway to get a real LRT + conversion price tag...magic elves didn't build it, leaving it ready for conversion almost immediately after completion.

Yes but we are debating here, what should be done next. Not the total project cost. In this case, I am sure what most taxpayers want to know is how much, and what do we get for that.

As for some Finch riders shifting over to Sheppard, it is common knowledge that people practically always want [and will go out of their way if necessary] to travel longer distances on subways. Not that Finch is more than a few minutes away from Sheppard.

I am skeptical that the average person would want to make two transfers just to get to the subway. And the closer one gets to Yonge the less likely it is. If the RT extension happens, then riders east of Markham will have early access to rail on their trip. And if GO integration happens, then Agincourt will also suck up riders. That excludes a good part of the ridership that would use the Sheppard line.

It's also common knowledge that people prefer grade-separated lines because these lines are faster. Imagine how much busier Bathurst would be if the Yonge subway wasn't just a few minutes over. By the way, lots of people transfer onto the Finch bus from all the N/S routes it crosses.

Sure they prefer subways, when the distance to them is trivial. What happens when they need two transfers to get there. It maybe a few minutes apart but that can be a real pain in the winter. I am sure some cross over now, but IMO it's likely to only see a minimal diversion of riders.

If I had 2 billion to spend on Sheppard, I would use it to convert the line to LRT and to build it to Meadowvale in the East and in a tunnel to the west till Downsview.

For Scarborough, equally effective would be putting in that money to extend the BD line to STC and finishing the RT extension to intercept riders on Sheppard. That would divert all downtown bound riders from Sheppard to the BD line quite early.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes but we are debating here, what should be done next. Not the total project cost.

If we're debating without considering cost, then extending the subway is the automatic winner.

And what's this second transfer you keep mentioning? Instead of taking, say, the Warden bus to Finch and over to Yonge, some people will take Warden to Sheppard and the subway over. Buses do not regularly get caught in traffic on Finch but that change very quickly, and when it does, a grade-separated alternative will look very appealing to a lot of riders.

Listing other projects as you do assumes a limited pot of money, which is not the case. We can build every project coruscanti listed...Metrolinx is proposing to spend three three or four times as much. Extending the Danforth line, even up to Sheppard, will divert very, very few downtown-bound riders off Sheppard...Sheppard's ridership out there is low and few of them ride all the way to Yonge, which is one reason why a one-seat ride from Meadowvale to Yonge is pretty useless and shouldn't hold the interests of the greater part of the corridor hostage. As a rule, people living east of the Stouffville line go downtown via the Danforth line, and people west of the Stouffville line go over to Yonge and then down.

 

[Voltz]

Yes, over $2B, as you need to add in the cost of constructing the Sheppard subway to get a real LRT + conversion price tag...magic elves didn't build it, leaving it ready for conversion almost immediately after completion.

So your saying that to calculate the cost of converting and extending the sheppard line, they should include the original cost of building the subway? That is not a fair comparison, Its just twisting the numbers to support your position.

That is like me saying that finishing the subway would cost $3B, if I were to include the cost of building the first section.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Converting the line to LRT almost immediately after completing it and not recognizing the sunk cost, as if the tunnel and its infrastructure are naturally occurring phenomena, is also a perversion of the comparison between various options, particularly since you're all so preoccupied with the relative capital costs of these options.

 

[Voltz]

Converting the line to LRT almost immediately after completing it and not recognizing the sunk cost, as if the tunnel and its infrastructure are naturally occurring phenomena, is also a perversion of the comparison between various options, particularly since you're all so preoccupied with the relative capital costs of these options.

I get your point, and I agree that it would seen a waste to build a subway and then soon after convert it to something else, but the waste was to build the subway in the first place. $2 Billion, the total cost to built a subway and then convert and extend as LRT, is a rather high cost to only end up with a LRT line, but that high cost would only be the result of the narrow minded mistake of building the subway in the first place.

Including that $1B in the LRT scenario but not in a subway extension scenario is a perversion, and a unfair comparison, because that money has already been spent and there is no way to get it back. Plus that first billion is absolutely required to have been spent in an extension scenario.

 

[Rainforest]

On the cost calculation side, Voltz is right IMO. For a valid comparison of several options, the previous investment (existing piece of Sheppard subway) should be excluded from every option, or it should be included in all options. It can't be included in one option and excluded from the other.

However, Scarberian has a good point which applies to Return / Usability rather than Cost. Return-on-investment for a longer subway will be greater than the sum of returns for two halfs of that subway, since there will be a greater proportion of passengers who can benefit from the trip on subway. Therefore, existing subway section is an argument for adding another section, as adding section 2 will improve return on the investment already made in section 1.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It wouldn't be seen as a waste, it would be a waste. The hilarious thing here is that some people think the best way to respond to what they perceive as a waste (the Sheppard subway) is to spend a lot more money on the tunnel and replace the line with something with lower capacity and that stops at red lights.

Rainforest, I was only talking about the conversion option when I said that the effective cost of that LRT line would be $2B. If there was no tunnel, Transfer City would not have proposed to build one. Of course a final total cost of an completed/extended Sheppard line would need to include the Yonge-Don Mills stretch, but extending it would not require going back and rebuilding the entire completed part. Voltz understood my point when he noted that that's a lot of money to spend and end up with only an LRT line (and people talk about the conversion option as if the tunnel was built by elves or erosion and is sitting there unused...and this is where someone will say the line is underused, yet if no one's using the line, why do we need to spend a billion dollars farther east where the ridership is far lower?) but he's wrong about what the mistake is...the mistake would be spending even more money ripping the subway apart and reducing the quality of service barely after the paint has had a chance to dry. The conversion option smacks of revenge...revenge for long gone streetcar tracks, revenge against Mel Lastman, revenge against whatever could possibly motivate someone to desire spending a great deal of money to destroy a subway line.

 

[Dan416]

I absolutely agree Scarberian.

And I agree with what Rainforest said that building the second half of Sheppard will increase the usefulness of the first half. That's the whole reason to build the second half. To make the whole corridor more useful. That's exactly why I included the Sheppard West extension. Having a line going from Downsview/Sheppard West all the way to STC would be far more useful than what we have now.

 

[Rainforest]

Scarberian: I certainly do not support the conversion of Sheppard subway to LRT, i.e. agree with you on the essence of this issue.

However, your assumption that the conversion proposal stems from the "revenge for long gone streetcar tracks" is odd and, in any case, is totally unverifiable.

To be fair, funny straw-man type assumptions come occassionally from both the subway and LRT "camps". My favorites are "LRT supporters are university students living downtown and never travelling more than a few blocks" and "those who support subways really want to preserve the street lanes for their private autos".

I call for everyone to debate the issues on their technical / fiscal / investment merits, and refrain from unverifiable assumptions regarding the motivation of their opponents.